


Don't You Forget About Me

by AR_Torquil



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: BUT ALSO HAPPY, Bittersweet, F/F, Fluff, Heartache, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 05:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11456517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AR_Torquil/pseuds/AR_Torquil
Summary: Max doesn’t forget. Not tomorrow, not the day after, not weeks after, not twenty years later when she has a house and a small family in a little town in Utah.





	Don't You Forget About Me

**Author's Note:**

> (I’m all for Bae > Bay but I couldn’t help thinking about this…)
> 
> I appreciate you taking the time to read my story, and I respect your opinions. In order to prevent confusion I'm going to provide a little insight on to the inspiration for this short fic.
> 
> The way I envisioned this story had a lot to do with Max's memory gaps that she has as timelines 'catch up' with her. For instance, how she 'comes to' in Chloe's room after the alternate paralyzed Chloe timeline in Episode 4. Or the time she 'comes to' on the beach with Chloe in Episode 5. I pictured that over time Max would forget-or perhaps overcome-the terrible experiences she had, but Chloe's spirit (which I believe is the blue butterfly) would never let her forget the wonderful moments they shared before Max uses the butterfly photo to go back and let Chloe be shot to keep the storm from coming. 
> 
> While I prefer the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending, I appreciate the impactfulness of the Sacrifice Chloe ending.
> 
> Max never really gives up on Chloe. The point of the Sacrifice Chloe ending was for Max to learn to not use her powers if she wanted to keep the storm from coming. Whether or not Max loses or keeps the power we aren't told but I believe Max would never use her powers again even if she could.
> 
> In the end, the point of my story was that Max never forgets Chloe. I hope my little explanation sheds some light on why I consider this a bittersweet and relatively happy ending. If not, I'm sorry.

Max doesn’t forget. Not tomorrow, not the day after, not weeks after, not twenty years later when she has a house and a small family in a little town in Utah. Chloe would laugh at her for hunkering down in a place like this, she knows, but it has the best places for photography. The town isn’t too small like back home, but it isn’t too big like Seattle either so she likes it.  
  
Of all the fucked up things that happened to her Max forgets Jefferson first. She forgets the sting of a needle to her neck. She forgets the cling of duct tape on her wrists and ankles. She forgets the way Jefferson looked down at her with the devil in his eyes and the flash of his camera. A Dark Room will only ever be a place she’s been to develop her art.  
  
The next thing she forgets is watching Chloe die the first time. Over time she forgets all the times Chloe died; that time in the junkyard when the bullet ricocheted off the car bumper wrong, the time she was too slow to stop the train, the time Chloe died by Jefferson’s hand. Max even forgets tampering with the morphine machine, and the nightmare before the lighthouse.  
  
Max doesn’t forget Chloe. Max remembers the way Chloe thrashed on her bed, how she looked laying on the hood of the junkyard car, how her fingers and hand felt on the railroad tracks, how groggy her face looks first thing in the morning. Max remembers how warm Chloe’s lips felt against hers even as they shivered in the freezing rain. The way Chloe says she loves her.  
  
It’s strange, she thinks, how it all worked out that way.  
  
A year after everything, Max gets a blue butterfly tattooed on her hip. It’s not a place she’d ever think of getting a tattoo, but Chloe would.

She knew what the names of her daughters would be even before she knew she would have daughters. Amber and Elizabeth. Chloe always hated her middle name, but it makes Max think of the famous photographer Elizabeth Buehrmann. The artist never posed her subjects in their portraits, and she never used artificial props or backgrounds. Her subjects were always captured natural and raw…like Chloe.

Some days she still wonders what would have happened if she saved Chloe. If she had just let Arcadia Bay be swept away by the storm. And every time, she sees a blue butterfly off in the distance and smiles.


End file.
